Organisations develop all kinds of strategies to carve their future path. Invariably these strategies cause something to change – hopefully in a positive fashion. However, while the brightest management minds may come up with great ideas, the challenge is still in an organisation’s ability to execute these strategies successfully. There is no shortage of good ideas in business today. What is needed is a measurable increase in our ability to deliver measurable, positive change and move towards the ‘future state’..
Desired changes are usually described in a business case which is a mechanism for justifying a level of expense and effort to create this future state. Many executives have great skill in writing business cases to obtain funding, but too often the expected benefits are forgotten once the funds are approved. Geoff Rinaldi, Managing Director of strategy execution and project implementation firm Tranzform Group, says: “You need to clearly describe business requirements to express what your stakeholders really need. The scope of each requirement should be extended so that it can be demonstrated to deal with a real business situation and offers a measurable benefit.”
Quantifying your requirements avoids ambiguity and facilitates prioritisation and testing of each requirement. Since these requirements are the main reason for project funding, it is essential to have a way of measuring the requirements if you subsequently expect to assess the benefits achieved. Defining requirements priorities allows flexibility and responsiveness when assessing the impact of changing business scenarios.
Rinaldi says that, for each requirement, stakeholders should be identified as the ‘owners’ of the requirement and thereby be identified as the people who will benefit from having each requirement implemented. From this point a picture emerges of the value to the business in implementing the requirements and changing to the desired future state.
Unfortunately, for too many organisations, the business case is often forgotten once the funds have been approved. This opens up the risk of losing sight of the purpose of an initiative. Worse still, the funds can be spent without any sign of that the organisation is receiving any of the desired benefits. “It is important that the business case remains a working document so that activities are planned to deliver measurable business outcomes” says Rinaldi. “These outcomes enable benefits which are measured and tracked by the business operation against the business case to determine the actual value created by the changes”, he says.
To hear more on how you can get started with a Benefits Management Framework, contact Tranzform Group on (02) 8314 6000 or email to
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
.
